System and method for billing of order call relay

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are a system and a method capable of pricing/billing a relay commission for a delivery order in a delivery order relay system which relays delivery orders, requested by users by phone call, to a store. One aspect of the present invention provides a system for billing relay of an order call, for billing a relay commission regarding an order through phone call, comprising: an order success determination module for determining whether a phone order placed by phone call is successfully received when the phone call is connected from a user terminal to a target store; and a billing module for billing a relay commission regarding the phone order to the target store when it is determined that the phone order is successfully received.

BACKGROUND

Field

The present disclosure relates to an order call relay billing system andmethod, and more specifically, to a system and method for enabling adelivery order relay system which relays a delivery order requested by auser through a call to the business establishment side to set/bill arelay commission for the delivery order.

Description of Related Art

In order to make orders for a delivery service, such as food delivery, aprocess of checking a list of orderable products through flyers or awebpage provided by a corresponding business establishment, selectingone of the orderable products, and ordering the selected product bymaking a phone call to the corresponding business establishment isperformed. However, to select a desired product through the aboveprocess with respect to many delivery business establishments takes alot of time and efforts. Accordingly, there is recently emerging aservice for establishing a member relation with a plurality of deliverybusiness establishments, arranging a plurality of menus provided by thedelivery business establishments manifestly for each businessestablishment, and providing the menus.

Furthermore, relay services which relay delivery orders are emerging.Such an order relay service is managed in such a manner that it providesinformation about a plurality of delivery business establishments to auser, and when the user selects one of the delivery businessestablishments and requests a delivery order through an order relayservice, the delivery order is relayed to the delivery businessestablishment corresponding to the corresponding delivery order, and arelay commission according to the relay of the order is paid by thecorresponding delivery business establishment.

The disclosure of this section is to provide background of theinvention. Applicant notes that this section may contain informationavailable before this application. However, by providing this section,Applicant does not admit that any information contained in this sectionconstitutes prior art.

SUMMARY

An order relay system may be divided into a relay method over a datacommunication network, such as that shown in FIG. 1A, and a relay methodover a telephone network, such as that shown in FIG. 1B.

In the relay method over a data communication network, such as thatshown in FIG. 1A, all of an order relay system 11, a user terminal 12and a business establishment terminal 13 may be connected over a datacommunication network (e.g., the Internet). Meanwhile, as shown in FIG.1A, a user specifies a delivery article, a delivery place address, etc.using the user terminal 12 and requests a delivery order from the orderrelay system 11 (S11). The order relay system 11 that has received therequest for the delivery order may transfer (i.e., relay) the deliveryorder to a corresponding business establishment terminal 13 (S12). Inresponse thereto, the delivery business establishment may deliver thedelivery article to the user (S13).

Meanwhile, in a relay method over a data communication network, the userselects a business establishment and a menu using an order application(e.g., an application “Baedal's Minjok by Woowa Brothers Inc., etc.)installed on his or her user terminal 12, and requests a delivery orderfrom the order relay system 11 over a data communication network. Theuser may also pay for the order through the order application. In thiscase, the order relay system may use a billing method for setting aspecific percentage of the payment price of each relay order as a relaycommission and levying the relay commission on a business establishmentbecause the order relay system can obtain information about the paymentprice of each relayed order from the order application.

Meanwhile, in the relay method over a telephone network, such as thatshown in FIG. 1B, a virtual telephone number mapped to the actualtelephone number of each business establishment may be assigned to thecorresponding business establishment, and a user may be provided withthe virtual telephone number (e.g., a 050 number) other than the actualtelephone number of the business establishment. If the user attempts atelephone call to the virtual telephone number using his or her terminal22 (S21), the telephone call is connected to an order relay system 21.The order relay system 21 relays the telephone call to the actualtelephone number of the business establishment corresponding to thevirtual telephone number, so the telephone call can be connected betweenthe user terminal 22 and a business establishment telephone 23 (S22).Thereafter, the business establishment may receive the contents of anorder from the user through the connected telephone call, and maydeliver a delivery article according to the contents of the order to theuser (S23).

Meanwhile, in the relay method over a telephone network, the order relaysystem 21 cannot be aware whether the order through the phone call inaddition to the contents of the order between the user and the businessestablishment has been successfully received or not. Accordingly, in therelay method over a telephone network, only a method for setting a relaycommission based on the number of relayed telephone calls or billing aflat-rate fee may be used.

An aspect of the present invention is to provide a system and method,which enable a relay commission to be set and billed by incorporatingwhether a telephone order is successful or not and/or the detailedcontents of an order in an order relay method over a telephone network.

In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, as an order callrelay billing system for charging a relay commission on an order througha telephone call, there is provided the order call relay billing system,including an order success determination module which determines whetherthe receipt of a telephone order through a telephone call has beensuccessful when a user terminal connects the telephone call to a targetbusiness establishment and a billing module which charges a relaycommission on the telephone order for the target business establishmentif it is determined that the receipt of the telephone order has beensuccessful.

In one embodiment, the order success determination module may determinethat the receipt of the telephone order through the telephone call hasbeen successful if the period of the call of the telephone call is aspecific reference period or more.

In one embodiment, the telephone call may be a relay call relayed by theorder call relay billing system or a relay system operating inconjunction with the order call relay billing system. The order successdetermination module may determine that the receipt of the telephoneorder through the telephone call has been successful if the period ofthe call of the relay call is the reference period or more.

In one embodiment, the order call relay billing system may furtherinclude a price information determination module which determinesinformation about the price of an ordered article requested through thetelephone order and a commission determination module which determinesthe relay commission for the telephone order based on the informationabout the price of the ordered article.

In one embodiment, the price information determination module maydetermine payment price information transmitted by the user terminal tobe the information about the price of the ordered article.

In one embodiment, the user terminal may obtain the payment priceinformation through an order application installed on the user terminaland send the obtained payment price information to the order call relaybilling system. The order application may be an application whichrequests a delivery order from an order relay system operating inconjunction with the order call relay billing system over a datacommunication network and pays a price for the delivery order to theorder relay system. The order relay system may be a system which relaysthe delivery order requested over the data communication network to adelivery business establishment corresponding to the delivery order.

In one embodiment, the price information determination module may obtaininformation about an average price of delivery articles to be deliveredby the target business establishment from an order relay systemoperating in conjunction with the order call relay billing system, andmay determine the information about the price of the ordered articlerequested through the telephone order based on information about anaverage price of items provided by the target business establishment.The order relay system may be a system which relays a delivery order forthe target business establishment, requested by a connector terminalconnected to the order relay system over a data communication network,to the target business establishment, which counts the price data ofordered articles requested through the delivery order relayed to thetarget business establishment, and which calculates an average price ofdelivery articles to be delivered by the target business establishmentbased on the counted data.

In one embodiment, the billing module may add the relay commission forthe telephone order to the amount asked during the term to be asked withrespect to the target business establishment during the term if thereceipt of the telephone order through the telephone call is determinedto have been successful, and may calculate the final amount asked duringthe term by applying a specific discount rate to the amount asked duringthe term.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, as an ordercall relay billing system for charging a relay commission on an orderthrough a telephone call, there is provided the order call relay billingsystem, including a price information determination module whichdetermines information about the price of an ordered article by atelephone order through a telephone call when a user terminal connectsthe telephone call to a target business establishment, a commissiondetermination module which determines a relay commission for thetelephone order based on the information about the price of the orderedarticle by the telephone order, and a billing module which charges therelay commission on the telephone order for the target businessestablishment.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, as an ordercall relay billing method for charging a relay commission on an orderthrough a telephone call, there is provided the order call relay billingmethod, including the steps of (a) determining, by an order call relaybilling system, whether the receipt of a telephone order through atelephone call has been successful when a user terminal connects thetelephone call to a target business establishment and (b) charging, bythe order call relay billing system, a relay commission on the telephoneorder for the target business establishment if it is determined that thereceipt of the telephone order has been successful.

In one embodiment, the step (a) may include the step (a′) of determiningthat the receipt of the telephone order through the telephone call hasbeen successful if the period of the call of the telephone call is aspecific reference period or more.

In one embodiment, the telephone call may be a relay call relayed by theorder call relay billing system or a relay system operating inconjunction with the order call relay billing system. The step (a′) mayinclude the step of determining that the receipt of the telephone orderthrough the telephone call has been successful if the period of the callof the relay call is the reference period or more.

In one embodiment, the order call relay billing method may furtherinclude the steps of (c) determining, by the order call relay billingsystem, information about the price of an ordered article requestedthrough the telephone order and (d) determining, by the order call relaybilling system, the relay commission for the telephone order based onthe information about the price of the ordered article.

In one embodiment, the step (c) may include the step of determiningpayment price information transmitted by the user terminal to be theinformation about the price of the ordered article.

In one embodiment, the user terminal may obtain the payment priceinformation through an order application installed on the user terminaland sends the obtained payment price information to the order call relaybilling system. The order application may be an application whichrequests a delivery order from an order relay system operating inconjunction with the order call relay billing system over a datacommunication network and pays a price for the delivery order to theorder relay system. The order relay system may be a system which relaysthe delivery order requested over the data communication network to adelivery business establishment corresponding to the delivery order.

In one embodiment, the step (c) may include the step of obtaininginformation about an average price of delivery articles to be deliveredby the target business establishment from an order relay systemoperating in conjunction with the order call relay billing system and ofdetermining the information about the price of the ordered articlerequested through the telephone order based on information about anaverage price of items provided by the target business establishment.The order relay system may be a system which relays a delivery order forthe target business establishment, requested by a connector terminalconnected to the order relay system over a data communication network,to the target business establishment, which counts the price data ofordered articles requested through the delivery order relayed to thetarget business establishment, and which calculates an average price ofdelivery articles to be delivered by the target business establishmentbased on the counted data.

In one embodiment, the step (b) may include the steps of adding therelay commission for the telephone order to the amount asked during theterm to be asked with respect to the target business establishmentduring the term if the receipt of the telephone order through thetelephone call is determined to have been successful and of calculatingthe final amount asked during the term by applying a specific discountrate to the amount asked during the term.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, as an ordercall relay billing method for charging a relay commission on an orderthrough a telephone call, there is provided the order call relay billingmethod, including the steps of determining, by an order call relaybilling system, information about the price of an ordered article by atelephone order through a telephone call when a user terminal connectsthe telephone call to a target business establishment, determining, bythe order call relay billing system, a relay commission for thetelephone order based on the information about the price of the orderedarticle by the telephone order, and charging, by the order call relaybilling system, the relay commission on the telephone order for thetarget business establishment.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there isprovided a computer-readable recording medium on which a program whichperforms the aforementioned method has been recorded.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, as an ordercall relay billing system, there is provided the order call relaybilling system including a processor and memory for storing a computerprogram executed by the processor, wherein the computer program enablesthe order call relay billing system to perform the aforementioned methodwhen the computer program is executed by the processor.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, there can beprovided a technical spirit in which even in the case of a telephoneorder the contents of which are difficult to check, whether the receiptof a telephone order has been successful or not and/or the price of anordered article requested through a telephone order can be predicted anda relay commission can be calculated based on the prediction of whetherthe receipt of the telephone order has been successful or not and/or thepredicted price. Accordingly, there is an advantage in thatillogicalness felt by a business establishment if a relay commission isone-sidedly set by not taking into consideration whether a telephoneorder is successful or not or the price of an ordered article can bereduced.

Meanwhile, whether the receipt of a telephone order has been successfulor not and/or the price of an ordered article requested through atelephone order, which has been determined by the order call relaysystem according to an embodiment of the present invention, may be alittle inaccurate because it is predicted based on reference data.Accordingly, another embodiment of the present invention may provide atechnical spirit in which illogicalness which may be felt by a businessestablishment when a relay commission is levied based on inaccurateprediction data can be reduced by applying a discount rate to a setrelay commission.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A brief description of each drawing is provided in order to more fullyunderstand the drawings cited in the detailed description of the presentinvention.

FIG. 1a is a diagram for illustrating a conventional order relay methodover a data communication network.

FIG. 1b is a diagram for illustrating a conventional order relay methodover a telephone network.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for illustrating an environment in which an ordercall relay billing system according to an embodiment of the presentinvention operates.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the ordercall relay billing system 100 according to an embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIGS. 4A and 4B show example of an order UI provided by an orderapplication.

FIG. 5A is a diagram showing a process of calculating, by an order relaysystem according to an embodiment of the present invention, informationabout an average price of delivery articles delivered by a targetbusiness establishment through an App order.

FIG. 5B is a diagram showing a process of determining, by the order callrelay system according to an embodiment of the present invention,information about the price of an ordered article requested through atelephone order when the telephone order is generated.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Embodiments of the invention will now be described with reference to theaccompanying drawings. The terminology used in the description presentedherein is not intended to be interpreted in any limited or restrictivemanner, simply because it is being utilized in conjunction with adetailed description of certain specific embodiments of the invention.

An aspect of the present invention provides a system and method fordetermining service fee (commission) of order made via a voice callbetween a user and a delivery service. A user activates a smartphoneapplication installed on her smartphone 400 for making an order for adelivery service provided by a delivery restaurant 500. The smartphoneapplication provides menus of the delivery restaurant 500 to the user.When the user selects at least one item on the smartphone applicationand makes a delivery order by confirming the selected item using a userinterface of the smartphone application without having a telephone callwith the delivery restaurant 500. Then, the smartphone applicationgenerates and transmits a delivery request to a remote computing system100. The remote computing system 100 stores details of the deliveryrequest in a data store connected to the remote computing system. Theremote computing system 100 then transmits a request for fulfilling theuser order to a computing terminal 520 at the delivery restaurant 500.When the delivery order has been fulfilled, the remote computing system100 receives a confirmation of fulfilled order and updates order logs inthe data store. Using logs of fulfilled orders stored in the data store,the remote computing system 100 determines service fees (commission) forthe fulfilled orders.

While the smartphone application provides the user interface (1^(st)user interface) for placing an order, the smartphone applicationprovides about user interface (2^(nd) interface) to make a telephonecall to the delivery restaurant. When the user selects the secondinterface for making a telephone call to the delivery restaurant 500,the smartphone application generates and transmits a request forestablishing a voice call session (between the smartphone 400 and apre-registered telephone 510 of the delivery restaurant) to a call relaysystem 200. The call relay system 200 then establishes a voice callbetween the smartphone 400 and the telephone 510 (or a mobile phone ofthe delivery service provider). The call relay system 200 collects andrecords details of the established voice call in a data store connectedto the call relay system. In some embodiments, on receiving user inputon the second interface to make a voice call, the smartphone applicationcauses the smartphone 400 to make a telephone call directly to thetelephone 510 of the delivery restaurant without involving the callrelay system 200. In such cases, the smart phone application collectsand records details of the established voice call. In embodiments, thedetails of the established voice call include at least one ofidentification (e.g., telephone number) of the smartphone,identification of the user, telephone number of the telephone 510,identification of the circuit delivery restaurant 520, duration of thevoice call, and user input made on the smartphone 400 during the voicecall. In embodiments, the smartphone application and/or the call relaysystem 200 transmit details of the established voice calls to the remotecomputing system 100. In embodiments, the smartphone application and/orthe call relay system 200 store details of the established voice call ina data store connected to the remote computing system 100.

When a user places an order via a voice call (telephone call) to adelivery restaurant using the second interface of the smartphoneapplication, the content of the voice call is not available to thesmartphone application or the remote computing system (billing system).Therefore, to determine a service fee (commission) for the establishedvoice call initiated via on the second interface of the smartphoneapplication, the remote computing system (in cooperation with thesmartphone application, the call relay system) determines or estimates(1) whether an order has been placed via the voice call and (2) what isthe price for the placed order using available details (using thedetails of previously established voice calls).

In embodiments, the billing system 100 estimated that a delivery orderwas been placed when the voice call was longer than a predeterminedreference time. In embodiments, the billing system 100 estimates that adelivery order was placed when voice calls when at least two consecutivecalls are made between the smartphone and the restaurant (during apredetermined time period).

In embodiments, the billing system 100 estimates the price for theplaced order (which is a factor of the commission) using information ofone or more previous orders (“App order”) placed for the same deliveryrestaurant via the first user interface of the smartphone. As prices ofthe App orders (placed via the first user interface) are available tothe billing system 100, the billing system 100 estimates the estimatesthe price for the placed order (voice call order) using the prices ofthe App orders (App orders made for the same restaurant, App orders fromother users that can be related to the user based on at least one fromage, address, pattern of order and a preferred restaurant). In someembodiments, a minimum price of the previous orders (via the firstinterface, without a voice call) may be used as a factor of thecommission. In some embodiments, among the previous orders (App orders),the billing system 100 considers the App orders made during apredetermined length of time period (days, weeks, months) before thevoice call, made during the same week(s), the same months(s), or samehour(s) of the day to which the voice call belongs to for determiningthe price of the voice call order.

The present invention may be modified in various ways and may beimplemented to have several embodiments. Specific embodiments areillustrated in the drawings and are described in detail. It is howeverto be understood that the present invention is not intended to belimited to the specific embodiments and the present invention includesall modifications, equivalents and substitutions which fall within thespirit and technological scope of the present invention. In describingthe present invention, a detailed description of a known art related tothe present invention will be omitted if it is deemed to make the gistof the present invention unnecessarily vague.

Terms, such as the first and the second, may be used to describe variouselements, but the elements should not be restricted by the terms. Theterms are used to only distinguish one element from the other element.

The terms used in this application are used to only describe specificembodiments and are not intended to restrict the present invention. Anexpression of the singular number includes an expression of the pluralnumber unless clearly defined otherwise in the context.

In this specification, terms, such as “include” or “have”, are intendedto designate that characteristics, numbers, steps, operations, elements,or parts which are described in the specification, or a combination ofthem exist, and should not be understood that they exclude the existenceor possible addition of one or more other characteristics, numbers,steps, operations, elements, parts or combinations of them in advance.

Furthermore, in this specification, if any one element “transmits” datato the other element, this means that the element may directly transmitthe data to the other element or may transmit the data to the otherelement through at least another element. In contrast, if any oneelement “directly transmits” data to the other element, this means thatthe data is transmitted from the element to the other element withoutthe intervention of another element.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for illustrating an environment in which an ordercall relay billing system according to an embodiment of the presentinvention operates.

Referring to FIG. 2, in order for an order call relay billing methodaccording to the technical spirit of the present invention to beperformed, the order call relay billing system 100 may be provided.

A user terminal 400 may connect a telephone call to the telephone 510 ofa business establishment through a telephone conversation and request anorder through a voice or an ARS. The order may preferably be a deliveryorder that requests a delivery article to be delivered to a user.

Meanwhile, in one embodiment, the user terminal 400 may connect thetelephone call to the telephone 510 of the business establishmentthrough a telephone relay system 200 operating in conjunction with theorder call relay billing system 100. In this case, a virtual telephonenumber mapped to the actual telephone number of the businessestablishment 500 may be assigned to the telephone 510 of the businessestablishment 500. The telephone relay system 200 may have stored amapping relation between the actual telephone number and virtualtelephone number of the business establishment 500. Furthermore, theuser terminal 400 may be provided with the virtual telephone number ofthe business establishment 500. In the present embodiment, the userterminal 400 may attempt a call to the virtual telephone number of thebusiness establishment 500 in order to place an order to the businessestablishment 500. Accordingly, the call is connected to the telephonerelay system 200. The telephone relay system 200 relays the telephonecall to the actual telephone number of the business establishment 500mapped to the virtual telephone number, so the telephone call may beconnected between the user terminal 200 and the telephone 510 of thebusiness establishment 500.

Meanwhile, the order call relay billing system 100 may be a system forlevying a relay commission for the order through the telephone call onthe business establishment 500 that has received the order through thetelephone call. The order call relay billing system 100 may determinethe relay commission for the telephone order by predicting whether thereceipt of the telephone order through the telephone call connectedbetween the user terminal 400 and the telephone 510 of the businessestablishment 500 has been successful or not and/or the price of anordered article requested through the telephone order, and may levy therelay commission on the business establishment 500.

In some implementation examples, an order relay system 300 may send orreceive information and/or data from the user terminal 400, ifnecessary.

Meanwhile, the order call relay billing system 100 may operate inconjunction with the telephone relay system 200 and/or a specific orderrelay system 300. In this specification, what two systems operate inconjunction with each other may mean that in a narrow sense, the twosystems are managed by the same business establishment or a businessestablishment having a specific contract relation with the two systems,and may mean that in a broad sense, the two systems are connected over awired/wireless communication network and send or receive a variety ofpieces of information and/or data in order to implement the technicalspirit of the present invention.

Meanwhile, the order relay system 300 may be a system which relays adelivery order, requested by the user terminal 400 connected to theorder relay system 300 over a data communication network, a deliverybusiness establishment corresponding to the delivery order. The datacommunication network may mean a network capable of transmitting packetdata and may be the Internet, for example. A variety of types of devicesand systems connected to the data communication network may perform theTCP/IP, UDP, socket communication, etc.

For a delivery order over the data communication network, a specificorder application may have been installed on the user terminal 400. Theorder application displays orderable business establishments andorderable items provided by each of the business establishments. When auser selects a business establishment (e.g., 500) and a menu and ordersthe menu, the order application may transmit order information,including the selected business establishment information and theselected menu information, to the order relay system 300 over the datacommunication network. Accordingly, the order relay system 300 maytransfer (relay) the order information to the terminal (e.g., 520) ofthe business establishment corresponding to the business establishmentinformation included in the order information. In this case, the orderrelay system 300 and the terminal (e.g., 500) of the businessestablishment may also be connected over the data communication network.

Furthermore, the order application may also perform a function forenabling a settlement cost for an order through the order application tobe paid to the order relay system 300. In this case, the orderapplication may display the price of each of ordered articles which maybe selected by a user. When the user requests a delivery order, theorder application may receive settlement information from the user andenable a price for the delivery order to be paid to the order relaysystem 300 using the received settlement information.

An order method through an order application, such as that describedabove, is a method different from an order method through a telephonecall and is hereinafter defined as an “App order” method. That is, the“App order” method may mean a method of a form in which a user selectsan ordered article through an order application installed on his or heruser terminal, sends order information for ordering the selected articleto an order relay system over a data communication network, and pays aprice for the ordered article through the order application.

The order relay system 300 may count the price data of ordered articles,requested through delivery orders relayed to a corresponding businessestablishment through the App order method, for each businessestablishment, and may calculate an average price of delivery articlesdelivered by a corresponding business establishment for each businessestablishment based on counted data. That is, the order applicationtransmits information about a business establishment and informationabout an ordered article to the order relay system 300 whenever eachorder is placed. Accordingly, the order relay system 300 may count theprice data of ordered articles, delivered by each businessestablishment, based on the order of an App method by analyzing the datatransmitted by the order application. Furthermore, the order relaysystem 300 may calculate an average price of delivery articles deliveredby a corresponding business establishment by dividing price data,counted for a specific period (e.g., a month or a quarter), by thenumber of orders received by the corresponding business establishment orthe number of delivery articles for the specific period.

Meanwhile, a representative example of a relay method over a datacommunication network has been described in Korean Patent ApplicationNo. 10-2014-0074930 “Delivery order relaying system and providing methodthereof” (hereinafter referred to as a “prior application) filed by thepresent applicant. Contents described in the prior application areincluded as the reference of the present invention and may be treated asbeing written in this specification.

Meanwhile, the user terminal 400 may include a desktop and a laptop, andmay be a mobile device including a portable phone, a smart phone, atable PC and a personal digital assistant (PDA), a wireless computingdevice including a handheld device having another radio access function,or a processing device connected to another wireless modem.

The business establishment terminal 520 may also include a desktop and alaptop, and may be a mobile device including a portable phone, a smartphone, a table PC and a personal digital assistant (PDA), a wirelesscomputing device including a handheld device having another radio accessfunction, or a processing device connected to another wireless modem. Insome embodiments, the business establishment terminal 520 may be a formincluded in a Point of Sale (POS) terminal or a form connected to a POSterminal through a specific interface. In this case, the businessestablishment terminal 520 may also perform a variety of types offunctions and credit card inquiry/settlement function which arenecessary to implement the technical spirit of the present invention.

Meanwhile, FIG. 2 shows only a single user terminal 400 and a singlebusiness establishment 500, for convenience of description, but a personhaving ordinary skill in the art to which the present invention pertainsmay easily understand that the telephone relay system 200 and/or theorder relay system 300 may relay a plurality of user terminals and aplurality of business establishments.

Furthermore, FIG. 2 shows an example in which the order call relaybilling system 100 has been implemented as a separate system separatedfrom the telephone relay system 200 and the order relay system 300. Insome embodiments, however, some or all of the elements of the order callrelay billing system 100 may be implemented in such a way as to beincluded in the telephone relay system 200 or the order relay system300. Furthermore, unlike in FIG. 2, the telephone relay system 200 andthe order relay system 300 may be implemented as a single systemconnected to a telephone network and a data communication network.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the ordercall relay billing system 100 according to an embodiment of the presentinvention.

Referring to FIG. 3, the order call relay billing system 100 may includean order success determination module 110, a price informationdetermination module 120, a commission determination module 130 and abilling module 140. In some embodiments of the present invention, someof the elements of FIG. 3 may not correspond to elements that areessentially necessary to implement the present invention. Furthermore,in some embodiments, the order call relay billing system 100 may includea larger number of elements than the elements of FIG. 3. For example,the order call relay billing system 100 may further include a controlmodule (not shown) capable of controlling the functions and/or resourcesof other elements (e.g., the order success determination module 110, theprice information determination module 120, the commission determinationmodule 130 and/or the billing module 140) included in the order callrelay billing system 100.

The order call relay billing system 100 may include hardware resourcesand/or software necessary to implement the technical spirit of thepresent invention, but does not mean a single physical element or asingle device. That is, the order call relay billing system 100 may meana logical combination of hardware and/or software provided in order toimplement the technical spirit of the present invention, and may beimplemented as a set of logical elements which are installed onseparated devices, if necessary, and which perform respective functionsto implement the technical spirit of the present invention. Furthermore,the order call relay billing system 100 may mean a set of elementsimplemented according to respective functions or roles for implementingthe technical spirit of the present invention. For example, the ordersuccess determination module 110, the price information determinationmodule 120, the commission determination module 130 and/or the billingmodule 140 may be located at different physical devices or may belocated at the same physical device. Furthermore, in some implementationexamples, detailed elements that form each of the order successdetermination module 110, the price information determination module120, the commission determination module 130 and/or the billing module140 may be located at different physical devices. The detailed elementslocated at the different physical devices may be organically combined torealize the function performed by each of the modules.

Furthermore, in this specification, the module may mean a functional,structural combination of hardware for performing the technical spiritof the present invention and software for driving the hardware. Forexample, the module may mean a logical unit of specific code andhardware resources in which the specific code is performed, and thoseskilled in the art may easily reason that the module does notessentially mean physically connected code or one kind of hardware.

Referring to FIG. 3, when the user terminal 400 connects a telephonecall to the target business establishment 500, the order successdetermination module 110 may determine whether the receipt of atelephone order through the telephone call has been successful. In thiscase, what the receipt of the telephone order has been successful maymean that a verbal order contract (i.e., a contract on which a businessestablishment delivers an ordered article to a user and the user paysthe price for the ordered article to the business establishment) hasbeen concluded between the user and the business establishment throughthe telephone call. Accordingly, if the order requested by the userthrough the telephone call has been denied due to a specific reason forrefusal (e.g., the exhaustion of material) although the telephone callhas been successfully connected, the receipt of the telephone order maybe considered to have failed. Meanwhile, in this specification, terms“call attempt” and “call connection” different from the “receipt of thetelephone order” may be used. The “call attempt” may mean that the userterminal makes a phone call to a specific telephone number. The “callconnection” may mean that after a call to a reception-side telephone isattempted, the reception-side telephone accepts the call and isconnected to the telephone call.

In one embodiment, the order success determination module 110 maydetermine whether the receipt of the telephone order through thetelephone call has been successful through voice recognition. Forexample, the order success determination module 110 may obtain voicecommunication contents by hooking the telephone call connected betweenthe user terminal 400 and the telephone 520 of the target businessestablishment 500, and may perform voice recognition on the obtainedvoice communication contents. If a specific expression is included inthe voice-recognized contents, the order success determination module110 may determine the receipt of the telephone order has beensuccessful.

Alternatively, the business establishment 500 that has successfullyreceived the telephone order from the user terminal 400 may send aspecific success signal to the order call relay system 100. The ordersuccess determination module 110 may determine that the receipt of thetelephone order corresponding to the success signal has been successful.

Meanwhile, in the case of the aforementioned embodiments, there may be aproblem in that complicated and expensive equipment, such as a voicerecognition system, is required or a business establishment hassuccessfully received a telephone order, but does not send a successsignal in order not to pay a corresponding relay commission.Accordingly, in accordance with another embodiment of the presentinvention, although complicated equipment, such as a voice recognitionsystem, is not provided and there is no feedback (response) from abusiness establishment, whether a telephone order through a telephonecall has been successfully received can be predicted/determined. To thisend, the order success determination module 110 according to anembodiment of the present invention may measure the period of the callof the telephone call. If the period of the call of the telephone callis a specific reference period (e.g., 1 minute) or more, the ordersuccess determination module 110 may determine that the receipt of thetelephone order through the telephone call has been successful. Theperiod of the call of the telephone call may be determined by thetelephone relay system 200 or the order call relay system 100. In theformer case, the order success determination module 110 may receive atelephone call period determined and transmitted by the telephone relaysystem, and may determine whether the received telephone call period isa reference period or more. In the latter case, the telephone relaysystem may determine the start time and end time of a telephone call andsend the determined start time and end time of the telephone call to theorder call relay system 100. Accordingly, the order successdetermination module 110 may determine the period between the end timeand the start time to be a telephone call period. In some implementationexamples, the telephone relay system 200 may determine whether theperiod of the call of the telephone call is the reference period ormore, and may send a result of the determination to the order call relaysystem 100. The order success determination module 110 may use theresult of the determination transmitted by the telephone relay system200 without any change.

In some implementation examples, the telephone call is a relay callrelayed by the order call relay billing system 100 or the telephonerelay system 200 operating in conjunction with the order call relaybilling system as described above. If the period of the call of therelay call is the reference period or more, the order successdetermination module 110 may determine that the receipt of the telephoneorder through the telephone call has been successful. That is, the relaysystem 200 capable of relaying a telephone connection can easily checkthe duration of a telephone call according to the relayed telephoneconnection. Accordingly, there is an advantage in that whether thereceipt of the telephone order through the telephone call has beensuccessful can be easily predicted even without complicated additionalequipment.

Meanwhile, the telephone relay system 200 may provide information aboutan order call (a telephone call between the user terminal 400 and thebusiness establishment 500) to the order call relay system 100 whilerelaying the telephone call between the user terminal 400 and thebusiness establishment 500.

Meanwhile, the billing module 140 may charge a relay commission on thetelephone order for the target business establishment 500. In someembodiments, if the order success determination module 110 hasdetermined that the receipt of the telephone order has been successful,the target business establishment 500 may charge a relay commission onthe telephone order.

The billing module 140 may measure the number of order telephone callsrelayed to the business establishment 500 or the number of successfullyreceived orders for a specific period and set a relay commission basedon the number, but may differently set a relay commission depending onthe price of an ordered article requested by a user through a telephoneorder. To this end, the price information determination module 120 maydetermine information about the price of the ordered article requestedthrough the telephone order, and the commission determination module 130may determine the relay commission for the telephone order based on theinformation about the price of the ordered article.

In one embodiment, the price information determination module 120 maydetermine payment price information, transmitted by the user terminal400, to be information about the price of the ordered article. In thiscase, the user terminal 400 may obtain the payment price informationthrough an order application installed on the user terminal 400, and maytransmit the obtained payment price information to the order call relaybilling system.

The order application may be an application which enables a user toselect a delivery business establishment and at least one deliveryarticle provided by the delivery business establishment and to attempt atelephone call connection to the delivery business establishment.

FIGS. 4A and 4B show an order UI provided by the order application. Asshown in FIG. 4A, the order application may display businessestablishment selection UIs 1 to 3 in each of which one of a pluralityof delivery business establishments may be selected. A user may selectany one of the business establishment selection UIs 1 to 3.

When the user selects the UI 3 for selecting a delivery businessestablishment C, the order application may display a list of menus(i.e., orderable items) provided by the delivery business establishmentC as shown in FIG. 4B. The items of each of the menus may provide a UI 4for selecting a corresponding menu, the price 5 of each menu and a UI 6for inputting the quantity.

Information about the price of each of the orderable delivery articlesshown in FIG. 4B may be information which has been previously set in theorder application or which is received by the order application from theorder relay system 300.

If the user wants to order two menus 2 and two menus 4, the orderapplication may calculate the sum (19,000 in the example of FIG. 4B) ofthe prices of the items selected by the user. The user terminal 400 mayobtain the sum of the prices of the items calculated by the orderapplication as payment price information about the telephone order.Meanwhile, as shown in FIG. 4B, the order application may furtherprovide a UI 7 for a telephone order. When the user selects the UI 7 fora telephone order, the order application may attempt a telephoneconnection with the delivery business establishment C. The user terminal400 may transmit 19,000, that is, the sum of the prices of the itemscalculated by the order application, to the order call relay system 100as payment price information.

The order application may be an application which is used in an Apporder, such as that described above, and may be an application whichprovides both an App order and telephone order for each orderabledelivery article. In this case, the order application may furtherprovide a UI 8 for an App order as shown in FIG. 4(b). When the userselects the UI 8 for an App order, the order application may request adelivery order from the order relay system 300 operating in conjunctionwith the order call relay billing system 100 over the data communicationnetwork, and may enable 19,000, that is, the price of the deliveryorder, to be paid to the order relay system 300.

Meanwhile, in another embodiment, the price information determinationmodule 120 may obtain information about an average price of deliveryarticles, delivered by the target business establishment, from the orderrelay system 300 operating in conjunction with the order call relaybilling system 100, and may determine (or predict) information about theprice of the ordered articles requested through the telephone orderbased on the obtained information about the average price of the itemsprovided by the target business establishment. That is, in the case ofan App order, the price of an ordered article requested through eachorder can be clearly known due to the nature of the App order. In thepresent embodiment, the price of an ordered article through a telephoneorder by which the price of an ordered article is difficult to beclearly known can be predicted based on the price of an ordered articlethrough an App order by which the price of an ordered article can beclearly known. Such an embodiment is described below with reference toFIGS. 5a and 5 b.

FIG. 5a is a diagram showing a process of calculating, by the orderrelay system 300, information about an average price of deliveryarticles delivered by a target business establishment through an Apporder. FIG. 5b is a diagram showing a process of determining informationabout the price of an ordered article requested through the telephoneorder when the telephone order is generated.

First, referring to FIG. 5a , a connector terminal 1 to a connectorterminal N which have accessed the order relay system 300 for an Apporder may request an App order 1 to an App order N, respectively, fromthe target business establishment 500 (S100-1 to S100-N). In response tothe requests, the order relay system may relay the requested App ordersto the business establishment terminal 520 of the target businessestablishment 500 whenever the App orders are requested (S110-1 toS110-N). Accordingly, the target business establishment 500 may receivethe App orders and deliver delivery articles (S120-1 to 120-N).Furthermore, whenever the App orders are requested, the order relaysystem 300 may count the prices of ordered articles to be ordered by theconnectors through the corresponding App orders (S130-1 to 130-N).

Meanwhile, the order relay system 300 may calculate information about anaverage price of delivery articles delivered by the target businessestablishment 500 based on the price data of ordered articles countedfor a specific period (S140). For example, the order relay system 300may calculate an average price of delivery articles to be delivered bythe target business establishment 500 through an App order by dividingthe total price of ordered articles counted for a specific period by thenumber of items or the number of App orders.

Referring to FIG. 5b , when the user terminal 400 attempts a telephonecall to the business establishment telephone for a telephone order(S200), the telephone relay system 200 may relay the telephone call(S210), so the telephone call is connected between the user terminal 400and the business establishment telephone 520.

Meanwhile, the order call relay system 100 may determine whether atelephone call for a telephone order has been connected between the userterminal 200 and the business establishment 500 or whether the receiptof the telephone order has been successful through the telephone relaysystem 200 (S220). In order to determine information about the price ofan ordered article requested through the telephone order, the order callrelay system 100 may receive information about an average price ofdelivery articles to be delivered by the target business establishment500 through an App order, which has been calculated by the order relaysystem 300 In FIG. 5a (S230). Thereafter, the price informationdetermination module 120 may determine the received average price of thedelivery articles, delivered by the target business establishment 500through the App order, to be the price of the ordered articles requestedthrough the telephone order (S240).

As described above, the order call relay system 100 according to anembodiment of the present invention can provide a technical spirit inwhich even in the case of a telephone order the contents of which aredifficult to check, whether the receipt of a telephone order has beensuccessful or not and/or the price of an ordered article requestedthrough a telephone order can be predicted and a relay commission can becalculated based on the prediction of whether the receipt of thetelephone order has been successful or not and/or the predicted price.Accordingly, there is an advantage in that illogicalness felt by abusiness establishment if a relay commission is one-sidedly set by nottaking into consideration whether a telephone order is successful or notor the price of an ordered article can be reduced.

Meanwhile, whether the receipt of a telephone order has been successfulor not and/or the price of an ordered article requested through atelephone order, which has been determined by a method such as thatdescribed above, may be a little inaccurate because it is predictedbased on reference data. Accordingly, an embodiment of the presentinvention can provide a technical spirit in which illogicalness whichmay be felt by a business establishment when a relay commission islevied based on inaccurate prediction data can be reduced by applying adiscount rate to a set relay commission. To this end, the billing module140 may actually charge only part of a relay commission for a targetbusiness establishment during the term, which has been set by theaforementioned method.

In one embodiment, the billing module may charge a relay commission ononly part of a telephone order relayed during the term. Furthermore, insome embodiments, if it is determined that the receipt of a telephoneorder through a telephone call has been successful, the billing module140 may add a relay commission for the telephone order to the amountasked during the term to be asked with respect to a target businessestablishment during the term, and may calculate the final amount askedduring the term by applying a specific discount rate to the amount askedduring the term.

Meanwhile, in some implementation examples, the order call relay billingsystem 100 may include a processor and memory for storing a programexecuted by the processor. The processor may include a single core CPUor a multi-core CPU. The memory may include high-speed random accessmemory, and may include one or more magnetic disk storage devices, flashmemory devices or non-volatile memory, such as other non-volatile solidstate memory devices. Access to the memory by the processor and otherelements may be controlled by a memory controller. In this case, whenthe program is executed by the processor, it may enable the order callrelay billing system 100 according to the present embodiment to performthe method for providing the delivery order relay system.

The illustrative logical blocks and modules described in connection withembodiments disclosed herein can be implemented or performed by acomputing device having at least one processor, at least one memory andat least one communication interface. The elements of a method, process,or algorithm described in connection with embodiments disclosed hereincan be embodied directly in hardware, in a software module executed byat least one processor, or in a combination of the two.Computer-executable instructions for implementing a method, process, oralgorithm described in connection with embodiments disclosed herein canbe stored in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium.

Meanwhile, the method for providing the delivery order relay systemaccording to an embodiment of the present invention may be implementedin the form of computer-readable program code and may be stored in acomputer-readable recording medium. The computer-readable recordingmedium includes all of kinds of recording devices in which data readableby a computer system is stored.

The program code recorded on the recording medium may have beenspecifically designed and configured for the present invention or mayhave been known to and may be used by those skilled in the softwarefield.

Examples of the computer-readable recording medium include magneticmedia such as a hard disk, a floppy disk and a magnetic tape, opticalmedia such as CD-ROM and a DVD, magneto-optical media such as afloptical disk, ROM, RAM, and flash memory, and hardware devicesspecially configured to store and execute program code. Furthermore, theaforementioned medium may be a transmission medium, such as lightincluding a carrier for sending a signal that designates program code, adata structure, etc., a metal line or a waveguide. Furthermore, thecomputer-readable recording medium may be distributed to computersystems connected over a network, and the computer-readable code may bestored and executed in a distributed manner.

An example of the program code includes not only machine code, such asthat produced by a compiler, but also high-level language codeexecutable by a device for electronically processing information usingan interpreter, for example, a computer.

The aforementioned hardware device may be configured to operate as oneor more software modules in order to perform the operation of thepresent invention, and vice versa.

The aforementioned description is illustrative, and those skilled in theart to which the present invention pertains will understand that thepresent invention may be implemented in other detailed forms withoutdeparting from the technological spirit or essential characteristics ofthe present invention.

Accordingly, the aforementioned embodiments should be construed as beingonly illustrative not as being restrictive from all aspects. Forexample, each of the elements described in the singular form may bedistributed and implemented. Likewise, the elements that have beenillustrated as being distributed may also be implemented in a combinedform.

The range of right of the present invention is defined by the appendedclaims rather than the detailed description, and the present inventionshould be construed as covering all modifications or variations derivedfrom the meaning and scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. An order call relay billing system for charging arelay commission on an order through a telephone call, the systemcomprising: an order success determination module which determineswhether a receipt of a telephone order through a telephone call has beensuccessful when a user terminal connects the telephone call to a targetbusiness establishment; and a billing module which charges a relaycommission on the telephone order for the target business establishmentif it is determined that the receipt of the telephone order has beensuccessful.
 2. The order call relay billing system of claim 1, whereinthe order success determination module determines that the receipt ofthe telephone order through the telephone call has been successful if aperiod of a call of the telephone call is a specific reference period ormore.
 3. The order call relay billing system of claim 2, wherein: thetelephone call is a relay call relayed by the order call relay billingsystem or a relay system operating in conjunction with the order callrelay billing system, and the order success determination moduledetermines that the receipt of the telephone order through the telephonecall has been successful if a period of a call of the relay call is thereference period or more.
 4. The order call relay billing system ofclaim 1, further comprising: a price information determination modulewhich determines information about a price of an ordered articlerequested through the telephone order; and a commission determinationmodule which determines the relay commission for the telephone orderbased on the information about the price of the ordered article.
 5. Theorder call relay billing system of claim 4, wherein the priceinformation determination module determines payment price informationtransmitted by the user terminal to be the information about the priceof the ordered article.
 6. The order call relay billing system of claim5, wherein: the user terminal obtains the payment price informationthrough an order application installed on the user terminal and sendsthe obtained payment price information to the order call relay billingsystem, the order application is an application which requests adelivery order from an order relay system operating in conjunction withthe order call relay billing system over a data communication networkand pays a price for the delivery order to the order relay system, andthe order relay system is a system which relays the delivery orderrequested over the data communication network to a delivery businessestablishment corresponding to the delivery order.
 7. The order callrelay billing system of claim 4, wherein: the price informationdetermination module obtains information about an average price ofdelivery articles to be delivered by the target business establishmentfrom an order relay system operating in conjunction with the order callrelay billing system and determines the information about the price ofthe ordered article requested through the telephone order based oninformation about an average price of items provided by the targetbusiness establishment, and the order relay system is a system whichrelays a delivery order for the target business establishment, requestedby a connector terminal connected to the order relay system over a datacommunication network, to the target business establishment, whichcounts price data of ordered articles requested through the deliveryorder relayed to the target business establishment, and which calculatesan average price of delivery articles to be delivered by the targetbusiness establishment based on the counted data.
 8. The order callrelay billing system of claim 1, wherein the billing module adds therelay commission for the telephone order to an amount asked during aterm to be asked with respect to the target business establishmentduring the term if the receipt of the telephone order through thetelephone call is determined to have been successful, and calculates afinal amount asked during the term by applying a specific discount rateto the amount asked during the term.
 9. An order call relay billingsystem for charging a relay commission on an order through a telephonecall, the system comprising: a price information determination modulewhich determines information about a price of an ordered article by atelephone order through a telephone call when a user terminal connectsthe telephone call to a target business establishment; a commissiondetermination module which determines a relay commission for thetelephone order based on the information about the price of the orderedarticle by the telephone order; and a billing module which charges therelay commission on the telephone order for the target businessestablishment.
 10. An order call relay billing method for charging arelay commission on an order through a telephone call, the methodcomprising steps of: (a) determining, by an order call relay billingsystem, whether a receipt of a telephone order through a telephone callhas been successful when a user terminal connects the telephone call toa target business establishment; and (b) charging, by the order callrelay billing system, a relay commission on the telephone order for thetarget business establishment if it is determined that the receipt ofthe telephone order has been successful.
 11. The order call relaybilling method of claim 10, wherein the step (a) comprises a step (a′)of determining that the receipt of the telephone order through thetelephone call has been successful if a period of a call of thetelephone call is a specific reference period or more.
 12. The ordercall relay billing method of claim 11, wherein: the telephone call is arelay call relayed by the order call relay billing system or a relaysystem operating in conjunction with the order call relay billingsystem, and the step (a′) comprises a step of determining that thereceipt of the telephone order through the telephone call has beensuccessful if a period of a call of the relay call is the referenceperiod or more.
 13. The order call relay billing method of claim 10,further comprising steps of: (c) determining, by the order call relaybilling system, information about a price of an ordered articlerequested through the telephone order; and (d) determining, by the ordercall relay billing system, the relay commission for the telephone orderbased on the information about the price of the ordered article.
 14. Theorder call relay billing method of claim 13, wherein the step (c)comprises a step of determining payment price information transmitted bythe user terminal to be the information about the price of the orderedarticle.
 15. The order call relay billing method of claim 14, wherein:the user terminal obtains the payment price information through an orderapplication installed on the user terminal and sends the obtainedpayment price information to the order call relay billing system, theorder application is an application which requests a delivery order froman order relay system operating in conjunction with the order call relaybilling system over a data communication network and pays a price forthe delivery order to the order relay system, and the order relay systemis a system which relays the delivery order requested over the datacommunication network to a delivery business establishment correspondingto the delivery order.
 16. The order call relay billing method of claim13, wherein: the step (c) comprises a step of obtaining informationabout an average price of delivery articles to be delivered by thetarget business establishment from an order relay system operating inconjunction with the order call relay billing system and of determiningthe information about the price of the ordered article requested throughthe telephone order based on information about an average price of itemsprovided by the target business establishment, and the order relaysystem is a system which relays a delivery order for the target businessestablishment, requested by a connector terminal connected to the orderrelay system over a data communication network, to the target businessestablishment, which counts price data of ordered articles requestedthrough the delivery order relayed to the target business establishment,and which calculates an average price of delivery articles to bedelivered by the target business establishment based on the counteddata.
 17. The order call relay billing method of claim 10, wherein thestep (b) comprises steps of: adding the relay commission for thetelephone order to an amount asked during a term to be asked withrespect to the target business establishment during the term if thereceipt of the telephone order through the telephone call is determinedto have been successful, and calculating a final amount asked during theterm by applying a specific discount rate to the amount asked during theterm.
 18. A computer-readable recording medium on which a program whichperforms a method according to claim 10 has been recorded.
 19. An ordercall relay billing system, comprising: a processor; and memory whichstores a computer program executed by the processor, wherein thecomputer program enables the order call relay billing system to executea method according to claim 10 when the computer program is executed bythe processor.